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Marcus sends Kirk and the Enterprise to the edge of Klingon Space to fire torpedoes into a supposed barren area of Kronos (Qu'onos). A secret computer virus is implanted in the ship's computer by Section 31 to disable Enterprise while out there. Enterprise fires torpedoes. Klingons find Enterprise disabled. Klingons destroy Enterprise and the war Marcus wants begins.

Marcus was never going to spare Enterprise' crew. He sent them to slaughter to begin with.

__________________Now that I've seen it, and have also had time to mellow, to really think about it, I now find it absolutely, unbearably repulsive in every way except for some of the acting. - about The Wrath of Khan. Interstat, Issue 62: 1982

I really think they should have taken out the "I was never going to spare your crew" line. The only reason that's in there is to dumb it down, and tell the audience, here's the bad guy. It ruins the wonderful ambiguity that they just set up.

Opus wrote:

This wasn't too hard to follow:

Marcus sends Kirk and the Enterprise to the edge of Klingon Space to fire torpedoes into a supposed barren area of Kronos (Qu'onos). A secret computer virus is implanted in the ship's computer by Section 31 to disable Enterprise while out there. Enterprise fires torpedoes. Klingons find Enterprise disabled. Klingons destroy Enterprise and the war Marcus wants begins.

Marcus was never going to spare Enterprise' crew. He sent them to slaughter to begin with.

Hell, for all we know Scotty could have been right: something in the torpedoes fucked with the workings of the warp-core.

Starfleet Admirals have almost always been evil, corrupt, or just a general pain in the ass. One of the few decent ones was Admiral Ross, and even he collaborated with Section 31.

The character just doesnt make any sense at all.

They could have been a bit clearer with his motivations and he does come off as a clichéd moustache-twirling bad guy. And Vengeance is as subtle as a sledgehammer. But the basics of the character make sense. He's a Starfleet Admiral who feels he needs to militarize Starfleet to save the Federation from its own pacifism.

Marcus believed he was doing the right thing by sacrificing Enterprise and its crew and starting a war with the Klingons to ensure the security of The Federation. There were probably more than a few in the upper echelon at Starfleet, after witnessing the distruction of The Kelvin and Vulcan, and the near destruction of earth, who felt that security at any cost was a plausible stance, which would include building up Starfleet as a military power and locking down on individual freedoms.

This is not the Prime Universe.

__________________Now that I've seen it, and have also had time to mellow, to really think about it, I now find it absolutely, unbearably repulsive in every way except for some of the acting. - about The Wrath of Khan. Interstat, Issue 62: 1982

Admiral Cartwright tried to sabotage Klingon/Federation peace talks. Janeway somehow got promoted to Admiral AFTER all the crap she pulled in Voyager instead of rotting in prison where she belonged. You did have a good Admiral in the movie, Pike.

Does it really seem that reasonable though that a complete psychopath like this would become a Starfleet Admiral?

I don't see where all admirals have always been corrupt or evil. Admiral Hanson from Best of Both Worlds seemed alright. And the blonde admiral from TNG seemed normal enough.

This guy is just a bit over the top imo.

Weller was wonderful as the character, son. Shit, he stole the show when he was on screen. I bet that bastard brushed his teeth with bourbon, son.

The thing that should scare folks is that he was not a psychopath. I once posted in some thread that he reminded me of Curtis LeMay. Someone (M'Sharak?) responded that Weller, himself mentioned LeMay as someone who influenced his character. LeMay was incredibly respected as a general and was pivotal to U.S. success in the air war in Europe and the Pacific in World War II. If he had had his way, he also would've started a pre-emptive nuclear war to defeat the USSR in the early 1960s even though he knew millions would die. Marcus was distressingly close to art imitating life.

Also, as far as starting a war for the sake of war goes, we still don't know fully what happened to the Maine in 1898 that started the Spanish-American war. But someone was looking for a pretense for war, and there is was, convenient or created.

Sane minds do dastardly things for what they believe to be very good reasons. It could keep one up at night thinking about people like that out there.

__________________
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -- Mark Twain

I also don't think that Admiral Marcus was a psychopath. I think that he had become an extremist after decades of Cold War between the Klingons and the Federation. He believed that war was inevitable and wanted to fight it now, while he had Khan's advanced weaponry to give him an advantage. He genuinely believe that he was doing something that would ultimately help the Federation, so doing some questionable things and sacrificing some lives was a small price to pay. He was an "ends justify the means" kind of thinker. Being a huge Military History buff, I fully agree that Marcus reminded me of General Lemay later on in his career.

Does it really seem that reasonable though that a complete psychopath like this would become a Starfleet Admiral?

I don't see where all admirals have always been corrupt or evil. Admiral Hanson from Best of Both Worlds seemed alright. And the blonde admiral from TNG seemed normal enough.

This guy is just a bit over the top imo.

Weller was wonderful as the character, son. Shit, he stole the show when he was on screen. I bet that bastard brushed his teeth with bourbon, son.

The thing that should scare folks is that he was not a psychopath. I once posted in some thread that he reminded me of Curtis LeMay. Someone (M'Sharak?) responded that Weller, himself mentioned LeMay as someone who influenced his character. LeMay was incredibly respected as a general and was pivotal to U.S. success in the air war in Europe and the Pacific in World War II. If he had had his way, he also would've started a pre-emptive nuclear war to defeat the USSR in the early 1960s even though he knew millions would die. Marcus was distressingly close to art imitating life.

...

I think the interview originally appeared at StarTrek.com, but Weller's answer regarding Lemay as a model for the Marcus character and characterization was quoted in this TrekToday piece. It's not long, so I'll quote it here:

TrekToday wrote:

According to Peter Weller, Star Trek into Darkness‘ Admiral Marcus is not dissimilar from a relatively unknown historical figure from the early 1960s.

Like that historical figure, the admiral wanted to strike first and take the advantage that doing so would bring.

“Marcus is no different than Curtis LeMay, with a conscience,” said Weller. “I don’t know if people remember who Curtis LeMay [was], but he hid eighteen nuclear missiles from President John F. Kennedy. He was the guy who wanted to pull the trigger on the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you see Fog of War, it was all about ‘First strike! First strike!’ That’s a warmonger. So these warmongers exist, man, and LeMay personifies that. They were real. They are real. The thing that Marcus doesn’t have is faith in the pacifistic attitude of this particular terrestrial organization because the Klingons are aggressive. A war is coming. They’re encroaching. And what Marcus is thinking is he wants to get a jump on them, just like Curtis LeMay. Anybody who is critical of this, just watch the Errol Morris documentary Fog of War. It’s from 2003, and listen to [Robert McNamara] talk about LeMay.”

“Here are the facts,” said Weller, “as Marcus sees them: ‘The Klingons are coming. They’re aggressive. I don’t believe in the pacifistic whoo-ha, touchy-feely, go-out-five-years-and-explore-brave-new-worlds …horseshit. There’s a war coming on.’ So what I do is I take out the plutonium nukes, if you will, called Khan. I take them out. And I made a mistake. I even say it. So I don’t know what people are missing. He’s a guy who did it, by his own conscience, to protect his own particular world and then realizes that he fucked up. Now, the thing that makes him bad, from a moralistic view, is that he’s willing to sacrifice Kirk and the Enterprise to put this thing back in its shell. And he feels that’s a calculated risk. ‘I was never going to spare your crew.’”

__________________One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie
is that a cat has only nine lives. — Mark Twain

Does it really seem that reasonable though that a complete psychopath like this would become a Starfleet Admiral?

I don't see where all admirals have always been corrupt or evil. Admiral Hanson from Best of Both Worlds seemed alright. And the blonde admiral from TNG seemed normal enough.

You want to go there?

Evil and Corrupt Starfleet Admirals from the Prime Universe:

Mark Jameson: In his lower ranked days, gave advanced weapons to both sides in a planetary civil war. As an Admiral, overdosed on anti-aging serumNorah Satie: Carried out a witch hunt on the Enterprise and accused anyone and everyone of being a spy, saboteur, threat to the FederationErik Pressman: As a Captain illegally developed a cloaking device resulting in loss of ship and most of its crew. As an admiral tried to cover it up and acted like a douchebag.William Ross: Collaborated with Section 31, resulting in an innocent Romulan politician being framed and imprisoned.Leyton: Tried to stage a coup against the Federation President.Kennelly: Helped the Cardassians attack Federation outposts and frame the Bajorans and manipulate Starfleet into fighting the Bajorans.Matthew Dougherty: Helped the Son'a forcibly relocate the Ba'ku. This one's tricky, though, since he was under direct orders of the Federation Council and therefore not technically a renegade, even if he is one of the movie's villains.Cartwright: Where do we start? Conspiracy to assassinate the Klingon Chancellor and Federation President, framing other Starfleet officers, attempting to start a war between the Federation and the Klingons...